The mother of disabled teenager Joshua Wilson has paid tribute to a nightclub boss who has helped raise more than £26,000 for their charity.

Sacha Lord, the owner of the Warehouse Project in Manchester, got involved after hearing about Joshua’s condition, and chose the Super Josh charity to support for a 12-week series of events.

Donations to the charity were encouraged at music events held at the Victoria Warehouse venue from October last year until January 1, which totalled £26,547. It is the largest sum the charity has ever received since it was set up last year.

Mr Lord has now become the patron of the charity after being asked by Joshua’s mum Dawn Fidler, and they will also raise further funds for the charity at the Parklife Festival in June, which he also organises.

Dawn said: “It would have taken us years to raise this amount of money when we first started the charity, and we are delighted that Sacha has got involved.

“It has also helped to raise awareness. “Over 12 weeks of events, a massive number of people who will have heard about us. We would never have been able to do it so quickly and to so many people ourselves.”

Mr Lord said he first heard about Joshua at last year’s Parklife festival, which was held at Heaton Park, through a police officer who was working at the event.

He said: “It is a heartbreaking story. I met Dawn at Parklife, and she came to see me at my office with Josh.

“I really wanted to do something for the work she has carried out, because I cannot imagine how brave she and Josh are in going through something like this.

“I get a lot of people asking me for guestlist tickets, which get you into the events for free, so I decided to insist that people on the guestlist paid £5, as they usually get into lots of things for free.

Joshua, aged 13, was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of three, and was left with complex learning difficulties.

He is now back home in Walshaw after recently suffering complications and spending time in hospital.

Dawn added: “Josh isn’t well, and he will never get back to how he was. It will take months and months. He might go back to school, or he might never, we just don’t know.”